WASHINGTON, D.C., February 14, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com)  Almost immediately after President Obama announced the details of his accommodation on Friday morning, Catholic Health Association (CHA) President Sr. Carol Keehan registered her support, long before any other Catholic organizations had the opportunity to analyze the White Houses statement, let alone to issue a statement for or against. Some in the Catholic Church are calling Keehans close working relationship with the administration in drafting a measure that still violates their common religious beliefs a scandal.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the president called three people before delivering his speech on the birth control mandate Friday morning: Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan, head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB); Sr. Keehan; and Cecile Richards, the president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Sr. Carol Keehan

Richards and Sr. Keehan issued statements supporting the accommodation almost immediately after the speech. The White House had seen Keehans endorsement before delivering the speech, which would require health insurance companies to provide contraceptives, abortifacients, and sterilization to employees or religious institutions free of charge.

John Brehany, executive director of the Catholic Medical Association, told LifeSiteNews.com, I think its a scandal that [CHAs] statement mirrored that of Planned Parenthood so closely in tone and timing. Christian prudence demands a much higher threshold of scrutiny before jumping on the bandwagon, especially given the clear attack on religious freedom and the clear attack on the Catholic Church inherent in this decision.

Sr. Keehan said the CHA was pleased and grateful that the religious liberty and conscience protection needs of so many ministries that serve our country were appreciated enough that an early resolution of this issue was accomplished. Several news outlets balanced CHAs statement against Planned Parenthoods, leaving the impression the accommodation has satisfied leaders on both sides.

However, conspicuously missing from initial coverage was any statement from the Roman Catholic bishops, who were apparently still scrambling to make sense of the accommodation. Cardinal-designate Dolan wrote a pastoral letter on February 10 shortly after the accommodation had been announced, stating any sign of openness from the administration is a welcome first step. We must study it carefully. However, we cannot let up in our concern for the protection of religious freedom and the reverence for conscience which are at the heart of American values. Bishop Thomas G. Doran of Rockford, Illinois, went further, saying while he deferred to the USCCB to make a final determination, it first it appears that this is still material co-operation with evil.

A statement later in the day from the USCCB blasted the accommodation as insufficient to address their concerns. According to the bishops, the mandate continues to involve needless government intrusion in the internal governance of religious institutions, and to threaten government coercion of religious people and groups to violate their most deeply held convictions.

New e-mails show the White House had already lined up Sr. Keehans support, and that she had provided White House insiders a copy of her statement before releasing it to the press. Darron Paul Monteiro, associate director of the White House Office of Public Engagement (OPE), e-mailed a copy to friends Friday morning, writing: I wanted to be sure you saw Sister Carol Keehans statement on the new regulation being proposed and finalized later this morning.

This has led some to question whether she had a deeper role in the announcement.

I am a team player, Bill Donohue of the Catholic Defense League said in a statement e-mailed to LifeSiteNews.com, and Sr. Keehan would never be on my team.

At a minimum she had a call before hand, and maybe more, Brehany said. I do think its a scandal.

The Office of Public Engagement (OPE) is headed by Valerie Jarrett, named by political observers as the presidents most influential adviser. Attendees have exposed the fact that OPE regularly holds Common Purpose meetings with friendly activists to coordinate support for its policies.

Apparently, Sr. Keehan enjoyed greater access than the USCCB, which wrote on Friday, We just received information about this proposal for the first time this morning; we were not consulted in advance.

It would not represent the nuns first collaboration with the Obama administration on a policy her bishops opposed. Last June, Francis Cardinal George said, Sr. Carol and her colleagues are to blame for the passage of the presidents health care bill. The Catholic Health Association and other so-called Catholic groups provided cover for those on the fence to support Obama and the administration, he wrote. Such groups, Cardinal George said, had weakened the moral voice of the bishops in the U.S. and caused confusion and a wound to Catholic unity.

As a token of his appreciation for her support, President Obama rewarded Sr. Keehan with one of the ceremonial pens used to sign the bill.

At least one other Catholic organization has publicly supported the accommodation. The Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities (AJCU) issued a statement that it acknowledges and appreciates the compromise that President Obama has made to accommodate religious institutions in regard to the birth control mandate under the Affordable Care Act. We commend the Obama Administration for its willingness to work with us on moving toward a solution, and we look forward to working out the details of these new regulations with the White House. 

The Catholic Medical Association, which is the largest association of Catholic physicians in North America, insisted, [T]he flawed attempts at compromises, announced by the Obama administration to date, should be completely reversed. This echoes the USCCBs call to entirely rescind the HHS mandate.

We think the decision is a trainwreck in terms of religious freedom, womens health, and economics, Brehany told LifeSiteNews. Barring any further details that were missing, we still see it as very wrong.

I hope that a spirit of discernment will prevail, he said.

The offices of Francis Cardinal George, Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan, and Bishop Robert Vasa did not return messages before deadline.

The "Common Purpose" group tactic to co-opt Sr. Keehan apparently worked. Thankfully, other voices are now heard; and, hopefully, American citizens will be awakened to the approaching dangers represented by this attempted power grab

Standing face to face are the ideas of ordered freedom (liberty) and control (tyranny). Age-old ideas are at the fore of the battle in America. Which idea will dominate the minds of citizens? The future of liberty in the world will depend upon the outcome.

"Although all men are born free, slavery has been the general lot of the human race. Ignorantthey have been cheated; asleepthey have been surprised; dividedthe yoke has been forced upon them. But what is the lesson? ... the people ought to be enlightened, to be awakened, to be united, that after establishing a government, they should watch over it ... It is universally admitted that a well-instructed people alone can be permanently free."- James Madison

The current population control mechanism, to be administered by government, is not without roots in the ideology which dominates the Administration and so-called "progressive" thought.

Earlier, FR poster "livius" wrote: "What we are now being forced to pay for is essentially a government funded and (as yet) indirectly government administered population control program."

Writers have been exposing socialism's tyrannical principles and goals for over a century.

Yet, we have arrogant Americans, born in liberty, and viewing themselves as "intellectuals" and "progressives," who have embraced socialist ideas over the ideas of liberty and are determined to impose its deadly limitations on a once-free people.

Last week, my post included an excerpt from Edward Stanley Robertson's essay in which he stated that "the scheme of Socialism is wholly incomplete unless it includes a power of restraining population."

"I have suggested that the scheme of Socialism is wholly incomplete unless it includes a power of restraining the increase of population, which power is so unwelcome to Englishmen that the very mention of it seems to require an apology. I have showed that in France, where restraints on multiplication have been adopted into the popular code of morals, there is discontent on the one hand at the slow rate of increase, while on the other, there is still a 'proletariat,' and Socialism is still a power in politics. I.44 "I have put the question, how Socialism would treat the residuum of the working class and of all classesthe class, not specially vicious, nor even necessarily idle, but below the average in power of will and in steadiness of purpose. I have intimated that such persons, if they belong to the upper or middle classes, are kept straight by the fear of falling out of class, and in the working class by positive fear of want. But since Socialism purposes to eliminate the fear of want, and since under Socialism the hierarchy of classes will either not exist at all or be wholly transformed, there remains for such persons no motive at all except physical coercion. Are we to imprison or flog all the 'ne'er-do-wells'? I.45 "I began this paper by pointing out that there are inequalities and anomalies in the material world, some of which, like the obliquity of the ecliptic and the consequent inequality of the day's length, cannot be redressed at all. Others, like the caprices of sunshine and rainfall in different climates, can be mitigated, but must on the whole be endured. I am very far from asserting that the inequalities and anomalies of human society are strictly parallel with those of material nature. I fully admit that we are under an obligation to control nature so far as we can. But I think I have shown that the Socialist scheme cannot be relied upon to control nature, because it refuses to obey her. Socialism attempts to vanquish nature by a front attack. Individualism, on the contrary, is the recognition, in social politics, that nature has a beneficent as well as a malignant side. The struggle for life provides for the various wants of the human race, in somewhat the same way as the climatic struggle of the elements provides for vegetable and animal lifeimperfectly, that is, and in a manner strongly marked by inequalities and anomalies. By taking advantage of prevalent tendencies, it is possible to mitigate these anomalies and inequalities, but all experience shows that it is impossible to do away with them. All history, moreover, is the record of the triumph of Individualism over something which was virtually Socialism or Collectivism, though not called by that name. In early days, and even at this day under archaic civilisations, the note of social life is the absence of freedom. But under every progressive civilisation, freedom has made decisive stridesbroadened down, as the poet says, from precedent to precedent. And it has been rightly and naturally so. I.46 "Freedom is the most valuable of all human possessions, next after life itself. It is more valuable, in a manner, than even health. No human agency can secure health; but good laws, justly administered, can and do secure freedom. Freedom, indeed, is almost the only thing that law can secure. Law cannot secure equality, nor can it secure prosperity. In the direction of equality, all that law can do is to secure fair play, which is equality of rights but is not equality of conditions. In the direction of prosperity, all that law can do is to keep the road open. That is the Quintessence of Individualism, and it may fairly challenge comparison with that Quintessence of Socialism we have been discussing. Socialism, disguise it how we may, is the negation of Freedom. That it is so, and that it is also a scheme not capable of producing even material comfort in exchange for the abnegations of Freedom, I think the foregoing considerations amply prove." EDWARD STANLEY ROBERTSON

Methinks Sr. Keenan needs some time in a cloister so she can meditate and pray for God's guidance. She might take the time to read Humanae Vitae which she, apprently, has not done. And her fellow sisters might have a lively discussion with her about her duty to the Church as a member of a religious order.

4
posted on 02/14/2012 10:02:26 AM PST
by In Maryland
("Truth? We don't need no stinkin' truth!" - Official Motto of the Main Stream Media)

Humanae Vitae (Latin Of Human Life) is an encyclical written by Pope Paul VI and issued on 25 July 1968. Subtitled On the Regulation of Birth, it re-affirms the traditional teaching of the Catholic Church regarding married love, responsible parenthood, and the continuing proscription of most forms of birth control. (Wikipedia)

5
posted on 02/14/2012 10:06:27 AM PST
by In Maryland
("Truth? We don't need no stinkin' truth!" - Official Motto of the Main Stream Media)

Carol Keehen and her band of merry Jesuits once again flaunting the tenants of my faith. Jesuit universities should be banned from describing themselves as Catholic so as to no longer being able to deceive parents and students of their mission. Carol's gang of renegades should be exposed for what they are apostates.

The administration played this very carefully—having the useful idiot on board to make it appear that the “compromise” was satisfactory and not giving the bishops detailed information. By the time the bishops studied the statement and came out against it, the media had lost interest—they already had their story: “Obama meets concerns of Catholics.”

At least one other Catholic organization has publicly supported the accommodation. The Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities (AJCU) issued a statement that it acknowledges and appreciates the compromise that President Obama has made to accommodate religious institutions in regard to the birth control mandate under the Affordable Care Act. We commend the Obama Administration for its willingness to work with us on moving toward a solution, and we look forward to working out the details of these new regulations with the White House. 

I think these supposed Christians need to read The Holy Bible more often.

You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. - John 8:44

Since you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I am going to spit you out of my mouth. - Revelation 3:16

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